MLB Advanced Media will pay a minimum of $300 million to Riot Games through 2023 for the streaming rights for League of Legends.The deal is worth $50M a year till 2023.

Also on Dec 4 I said this on Twitter.

@mannyanekal on Twitter (Photo: Twitter)

So how are they going to monetize?

Ads and Sponsorships.

Riot's Director of eSports Whalen Rozelle said on Reddit that while the service would continue to be free - you can guarantee there will be some premium paid options later - it would currently be monetized this way for now.

Some might say that's a ridiculous amount of money for a game that may not be that popular years from now.